The Guardian view on Ireland’s new government: born in the eye of the storm | Editorial
TThe whole of Ireland was placed on red alert on Thursday Storm Eowyn Launched from the North Atlantic. Schools were closed in the Irish Republic on Friday, all public transport was halted and pet owners were asked to keep animals in stables or indoors, and 80mph winds were expected to leave a trail of destruction before the storm moves towards central Scotland.
The risk to life and property would be more than enough for most people in Ireland. But it’s hard not to see this week’s whirlwind visit as a metaphor Irish politicswhich has had an unusually stormy week as the Republic prepares for a tax and tariff battle with the new Donald Trump administration in Washington.
Ireland November 2024 General elections It bucked the global trend of anti-incumbency voting. The two main parties in the centre-right coalition, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, which have governed together since 2020, were re-elected. Their main rival Sinn Féin declined. Together, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came just short of level Overall majority In the Dáil. Dublin policy over the new year focused on reaching a confidence and supply agreement to give the coalition a new parliamentary mandate.
Both parties thought they had made this deal Earlier this month By securing the support of a group of independents. On Wednesday, the new government duly came to the Dáil seeking clearance to once again install Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin as Prime Minister (the Fine Gael leader, currently Simon Harris, is due to take office in 2027). But at this point it was all gone Horrible mistake.
The coalition plan has been met with intense anger, with opposition parties apparently angry that the new Speaker of Parliament allowed four independents to sit on the opposition benches while giving them more speaking rights than they would have had on the government side. The House was suspended several times as members rallied to each other over the meaning of the Dáil’s vague standing orders. It was an embarrassing moment for the Irish parliament, and not much better for politics generally.
It only took lunchtime on Thursday to reach a reasonable compromise. This allowed Mr. Martin to finally take over Seal of officekeys to the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday, while Dáil’s lawyers work on the standing orders over the coming days. Wednesday’s rampage is unlikely to be repeated – although we never say never. But it was a chaotic start to the life of the renewed coalition.
It was not helpful that these bickering occurred while Trump was threatening to impose sanctions on the European Union over its digital policies. This can lead to replay Irish jobs In particular, taxes paid by US multinational corporations whose European arms are based in Ireland, attracted by Dublin’s low corporate tax regime. These taxes, paid by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Meta and X, some of whose executives are close to Trump, helped fuel a boom in Irish public finances, helping the coalition parties win re-election. The Irish government may look like a stable outlier in an increasingly volatile European Union. But devastating storms may not be far away.
